Charlotte Kalla is in the midst of her career.
Ahead of the Swedish Championship week in Piteå, which starts on Wednesday and which will be the 34-year-old's last competition at elite level, national team manager Anders Byström says that he has been in contact with Kalla about the future:
Is there an interest in engaging her as a leader after her career?
- It may be that we have already talked about it.
She has a lot of experience that would be useful for the national ski team and the ski association to take advantage of.
There may be such thoughts.
There are definitely opportunities there.
Then she must want it herself, says Anders Byström.
"Fantastic team player"
He says that Kalla during the season showed good leadership qualities within the team, not least on those occasions when things went badly for herself, and she, for example, was poked by the relay team.
- Charlotte has been extremely good in such contexts.
She has kept her spirits up and is a fantastic team player, and has supported the others when things have gone badly for her.
She has done extremely well.
It is not a matter of course when you have been with her for so long and had the successes she has had.
It is impressive, says Byström.
He presents a theory that the covid-19 disease that Kalla had last season, still affects her:
- Of course the covid has been difficult to assess.
How much has it affected in general?
It's been a while now, but we know nothing about how it affects the riders in the long run.
We will have to analyze it in a few years when we have better data on this.